


Coolatta

by Crowbrain



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life: But The AI is Self Aware
Genre: But being male in a patriarchal society is convenient, G-Man is naturally genderless, Gen, I watched a theory video about the gman being a hatched Shu'ulathoi and it spawned this in my brain, Mentioned Gordon Freeman, Mentioned The Combine, Set in the reality of the Half-Life Game, metaphysical pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:35:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25286197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowbrain/pseuds/Crowbrain
Relationships: Tommy Coolatta & The G-Man
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Coolatta

There is an itching in a side corridor of his mind. An instinct or a twitch of will- persistent as the slivers humans get on occasion. 

He could ignore it. He feels the myriad futures blooming from this single point like mycelium. 

He could continue on, following his employers’ wills to their letter. Watching the one who will be coming struggle through challenge after challenge alone. Playing voyeur to the eventual untangling of chains of the slaves making slaves who then enslave. The infinite species spiraling in an ouroborus of hurt and greed. The ‘crabs bucket’ that is the Combine. 

This future will be more beautiful, he thinks. 

This, facility. The key and the gate, the beginning of all things to come is almost finished. Empty labs, empty pipes, lights just beginning to flick on. The first of countless scientists has just completed his application. Reactor cores wait to be bathed in the glow of nuclear fusion, waiting for operators and uranium. Graduate students that will become doctors of science that will delve farther than they ever knew possible. And he, in the office in the center of this labyrinth, with its blank walls painted Legend Tan over concrete. Time and patient waiting for efforts to manifest fruit. 

The itch becomes a burn.

The being that has not yet been named by the scientists that only see him from a distance, that has not yet been called “Mister Coolatta” on a tram floating in the void on the way to a birthday party, can feel as the atoms shift and rejoin. Molecules to amino acids to proteins to cell, tissue, organ. 

Instinct shapes them, this new not-quite being. Unlike when He emerged from his own ‘chrysalis’- he, contrary to those who would claim to be his peers, can truly claim to be a ‘self-made-man.’ He dictated the way his cells aligned- human for convenience. His mouth and binocular vision fit ill some days.

Here, he can only make polite request as the cosmos uses his being as a conduit for rearranging. He exhales star matter, the heat of atomic fusion turning cement to glass. It tears through the nerves of this body he told to be human. He gasps, within and without of himself, displacing to the connected network of his kin- his employers that have charged him with this orchestration of fate. Their distant hums are a pale comfort. 

The lights of Black Mesa flicker and crackle, pop and spark and go out and return Brighter. All at once he is full to bursting and hollowed out. Torn to shreds as the cheddared cheese. The leather of his office chair has torn under his fingernails, there is blood in his mouth from a bitten cheek- tasting of cobalt and saccharine. His kin coo, pushing gifts of new dreams, of memories of a home none can return to yet upon the new babe- though they cannot enjoy them, not yet conscious enough to parse the realities constructed by the Waiting. He swaddles this new being here, far below the surface and humanity’s prying eyes, in concrete, steel, and radiation. Safe and cozy.

* * *

_ NEXT TIME: _

He flips through the mans past, present, and future as though looking through the pages of a book. He watches as the hair bleaches and recedes and the stress lines on his face deepen. So desperate for purpose or oblivion after the other Dr. Coomer left him to become the director of Black Mesa East, to apply to the Black Mesa Power Cybernetics Initiative. 

Something shifts in the universe, when Doctor Coomer spots the bassinet by the desk. The despair seems to leak out, replaced with mushy sentimentality and adoration. The being now called G. Mann is for once grateful for the limited sensory abilities of this habitation over his true form. Otherwise his office would positively reek of butterscotch and artificial strawberry.

“Your boy is beautiful Director Mann. Whats his name? He looks like he might be a Tommy.”


End file.
